


Setting Sun Blues and Other Stories

by AlysanneBlackwood



Series: Holidays [4]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: 17th Century, Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - 1930s, Alternate Universe - 1950s, And Early Modern English, Angst, Dust Bowl, Gen, Gore lives up to his surname, Horny madness, How very spooky, I'm Sorry, Little kind of gets fridged, M/M, New England, One Night Stands, Personification of Death, Plotting to murder on Halloween, Satan - Freeform, The fourth chapter does not make sense, The second chapter happened because I listen to the 'O Brother Where Art Thou?' soundtrack too much, What more do you need?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27103438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlysanneBlackwood/pseuds/AlysanneBlackwood
Summary: Or, One Week of Terror 2020.Five scary stories to send a chill up your spine and make you check to see if you locked your door thrice!  So do turn off your lights, my dear friend, and read on.
Relationships: Lt George Hodgson/Lt Edward Little, Lt Graham Gore/John Hartnell, Thomas Hartnell/Thomas Jopson
Series: Holidays [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/861232
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8
Collections: One Week of Terror 2020





	1. Setting Sun Blues

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. This was inspired by the "The Hard Goodbye" segment from the 2005 film 'Sin City', directed by Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller, and Quentin Tarantino, which is in turn based on Frank Miller's comic of the same name.  
> 2\. I'll be honest, this isn't even horror. Not even close. I was going for more of a film noir/noir fiction feeling.  
> 3\. The song in this chapter is the traditional folk song "House of the Rising Sun"; I used the lyrics that Joan Baez sings in her cover (which didn't come out until 1960, but this is a folk song with several variants on the lyrics, so I think I am allowed it).  
> 4\. The prompts for Monday were "Haunted/Burial/There Will Be Blood/'It's just the wind.'" I chose "Haunted".
> 
> CONTENT WARNING for alcohol consumption, murder, and incredibly low self-esteem.

_Chicago, September of 1955_

It’s a night like any other. His fingers ache, and the bar’s already full up with men coming in from all sorts of work: teachers like himself, door-to-door salesmen sitting down for the first time in eight hours, buskers from the street corners, policemen still in full uniform, office workers who will never bother to straighten out their rumpled ties, the occasional corporate boss who brings a palpable smell of cigar smoke with him; and, in the corner, a man with his hat pulled down low over his eyes, watching everyone who comes in with a narrow, exacting gaze. Like every other bar and shop for the next three blocks, this place is a racket, and he would never come here at all if it wasn’t so close to home and he wasn’t utterly beat. The chatter is wall-to-wall as usual, and the booth right behind him is particularly loud, as the group of salesmen sitting in it compare their days, talking over each other at what must be ten miles a minute. Maybe they can quit their jobs and go into radio, George thinks. Then they’ll be too busy to shout in his ear and make his headache worse. 

There’s no one he knows here, and whilst he once had no problem finding a place in an unfamiliar conversation, ever since John moved out to Philadelphia last year he’s felt so strange about it that he’s hardly spoken two words to anyone aside from the bartender and his students. He can feel a silence around him, enclosing him and cutting him off from everyone else who talks the evening away. Silence is hell, absolute hell to live in. Maybe he’ll call John up if he doesn’t get back home too late. 

The bartender slams his palm flat on the counter, startling several people out of staring into their glasses. “Alright,” he calls out, “all of you, shut your mouths and enjoy your drinks. We’ve got entertainment.”

“Yeah who, Perry Como? Frank fuckin’ Sinatra? You get him out here to this dump?” someone yells from the other side of the room.

“Oh, real smart. You’re a real clever fellow, ain’t you?” the bartender retorts, and people start laughing at them both. Behind him, George hears a shuffling, and turns his head to the small space against the wall reserved for performers. There’s a guy hunched over on his knees, opening up a guitar case. Ten or fifteen more seconds and he’s sitting on the rickety stool, picking at a few of the strings and turning some of the keys to tune the thing. He wears his hat pulled even lower over his face than the man in the corner; all George can see is a mouth set in a straight, slightly downturned line. He thinks momentarily of leaning down to try and peer underneath it, to see what the singer seems so keen to hide, when he raises his head and plays a wordless introduction of five or six chords before singing.

_There is a house in New Orleans_

_They call the Rising Sun_

_And it’s been the ruin of many a poor girl_

_And me, oh God, I’m one_

His voice is nothing special. Rough: a little ruined, even, a little scratched, probably from drinking. But the feeling in it, the emotion, is enough to make everyone go silent and listen to him. There’s pain in that voice, a weariness settled deep in the bones and a loneliness that’s been lived inside for years. No grieving wails. No howling in rage. Only grim acceptance of the hand life has dealt him; the sound of beaten-down defeat. George finds that he can barely swallow. He wants to run, to bolt out the door and get away from that awful sound, that sound in which he can hear the self that is just around the corner, but he can’t make himself move. He stays in his seat, listening, willing to end, willing it to go on as he lets all of the shame rise up from deep inside him and course through his veins twice as thick as blood. He doesn’t know if his eyes are open are closed; either way, he can’t see a thing, the bar is a blur and all there is that voice and the vague, far-off sound of his own shuddering breath. Then: silence. Oh, God. No. 

Applause. He tastes wetness, salt.

“Play another!” someone to his left calls out, but the singer shakes his head, stands up, kneels back down to put the guitar away, and when he’s done, sits down at the bar right next to George. George looks down at the counter. If he looks up, he’ll… he doesn’t know what exactly. Say something useless, probably. He usually does.

“Whiskey.” The singer is quieter, more even-toned when he speaks. “Hey, you.”

George still doesn’t look up. “Yeah?”

“Saw you while I was up there. You didn’t look so good.”

“Long day is all.”

The singer sighs. “I know that feeling. What do you do?”

“Teach piano.” George keeps his responses short, ready to bite his tongue. There is no way this guy wants to hear about the failure of operatic mad scenes to truthfully depict a psychotic episode, or the sheer cleverness of _Northanger Abbey,_ or anything else he’s been thinking about for the past two days. 

“School or private?”

“School. It saves parents money. You ever teach?”

A shake of the head. “Never had the nerve for it.”

“What do you mean, ‘the nerve’?”

“Well, a man will throw his drink in your face, or curse you out, or refuse to pay you. That’s definite. A kid wants to know _why_ they’ve got to do this or that, and you’re sitting there without anything to say except, ‘Because I said so’, or ‘It’s for your own good’, and those don’t mean anything. Next thing you know, you’re questioning the authority you’re being paid to hold, and you’re wondering what the hell you’re even doing with your life.”

George hears himself laugh, feels some of the tension leave his shoulders. “Oh, Christ. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve ended up there. The only answer that means anything is, ‘This is my job and if you don’t go along with this I can’t pay my rent’, but the kids I teach have never heard of rent. I teach in Kenwood,” he clarifies, looking down again so the singer can’t see what he knows must be an awkward look on his face. “It’s got mansions up and down the streets.”

“Kenwood. Where’ve I heard of that?”

“You’re not from around here?”

“No, I’m from Traverse City.”

“There was this case thirty years ago, a couple of high school students murdered a little kid. People still talk about it.”

“Yeah. That’s where,” the singer says almost absently, and pauses. “What else do you do, besides teach?”

George pauses as well. What does he say? Tell the guy the truth? He’ll sound so lonely, so pathetic.

To be fair, he _is_ lonely and pathetic. 

“Nothing much,” he says at last, making an effort at caginess. “You know. Walk around. Come here after work. Go to the library sometimes. What about you?”

“Travel, play gigs around. I stay in motels, kill a cockroach here and there, and if I’m lucky, I get to listen to two or more people fuck in the next room. It’s all the same after a while. But you said you go to the library,” he says, finishing his drink. “You like to read?”

“Yes.” When the singer says nothing and tilts his head to the side, waiting for him to go on, George continues. “Jane Austen and Herman Melville, mostly.”

“An Austen man? I would’ve pegged you for Dickens. You remind me of some of his men -- Stephen Blackpool, mostly.”

“That’s a nice way of saying you think I’m down on my luck.”

“Hey, I’m down on my luck too. It’s not the worst place to be, when you get used to it.” He removes his hat, leans forward and asks quietly, without a trace of malice, “You’re still getting used to it, aren’t you?” George looks away. Whatever expression is on his face, it must be revealing too much. He tries to rearrange it, to smooth it out into neutrality, but instead feels a twinge of something he hasn’t felt in too long: the awareness of being underneath another set of eyes, and a set of kindly eyes at that. This man takes the time to look at him, really look at him, not just gaze at him with the impatient stare of his students, or the uncomprehending glances of people on the street or the train. He turns his head back around to face him. It’s only fair to return the favor.

Without the hat, even though the lights are low, his eyes are at last fully visible. George searches them. Melancholy, as he expected, but guarded -- there is something consciously veiled behind that melancholy. Does he look further, try to pry it out? No. Yes. No. Does he hope that George will pry it out of him; is he looking for someone to talk to about whatever he’s so carefully concealed? Some do. George does; he knows how to give people the look that’s not quite guarded enough for them to brush off what’s bothering him as too private. But that look is different on everyone, and this man… it could be that look and it could not be. Probably best to leave it alone, then, and answer the question.

“I guess I am still getting used to it.” And, before he can think, he hears himself say, “D’you want to get out of here?”

“Sure, why not?” The singer shrugs, stands, replaces his hat, and takes up his case. “Are we going anywhere?”

“I was going to head towards my place, if you don’t mind.” Oh, good Christ. What the hell is he doing, inviting him back? He has no idea who he is, not really; for all he knows every single word he’s heard is bullshit. If there’s one person he shouldn’t be hanging around, it’s the guy some Outfit mook hired to perform at this nothing of a bar. But he’s already said it and can’t think of a way to take it back without seeming callous, so he stands and walks ahead of the singer out the door.

They walk down the block, the air still warm with a trace of humidity; it’s still early in the month, not far along enough to feel that crisp edge. George looks straight ahead, hearing the singer’s footsteps just behind him. Don’t look back. Don’t get all confused again. Be on your guard now, or you’ll say the wrong thing.

A hand suddenly closes around his elbow and tugs him down an alley between two closed-up buildings. Well. This is it. This is what you get for being spectacularly, destructively idiotic. Just let him dump me somewhere I’ll be found--

Rough brickwork through his coat. The eyes once again hidden beneath the hat. A small, shaking breath (whose?) suspended between them. And then -- what? It takes a few seconds for the right word to reach his mind. 

A kiss. 

“Take me home now,” the singer breathes against George’s mouth. His voice is lower. “Please.”

The eyes. Watch the eyes. Now you force the veil aside. Or don’t. Don’t wonder how you’ve gotten this lucky. No one in this lousy town’s ever looked at you twice without a dismissal until him. So go on and take him home. At least you’ll have died trying to do something about the loneliness.

He returns the kiss by way of reply, tasting whiskey’s bitterness from the singer’s lips. “Alright,” he says when he pulls away, feeling too light-headed to say anything more. Part drink, part unexpected… whatever this is. No, don’t bother thinking about that. Just go and pray it doesn’t fall apart. He turns around and walks back out of the alley, this time listening for the singer behind him, every soft click of shoes on cement sending a tremor up his spine. For crying out loud. Stop worrying, stop asking questions, and let it happen. Two blocks and three flights of stairs later, he’s locking his door behind them. A second of silence, and suddenly he realizes. “Oh, I’m--”

The singer kisses him mid-sentence. Oh, what the hell. You’ll probably never get a night like this again.

They don’t bother with lights, though some comes in from the streetlight outside the window. Clothes left half-carelessly on the floor, they make love without any more words than are necessary. George feels the rhythm of the singer’s breathing against his chest: soft, uneven, turning to a short, sharp hiss when George enters him; now punctured by ragged, unrecognizable sounds. His arms tight around George’s back, pulling him still closer, hands pressed flat and hard into shoulder blades. The dull beam of light from outside is enough to see how his mouth occasionally moves, seeming to form a silent word too quick to read. George kisses the hollow of his throat, senses rather than hears the responding hum, the smallest of vibrations running through him. The singer lifts his head and whispers something; at first barely speaking at all, then just loud enough to understand.

Edward. He says his name is Edward.

For the second time tonight, something wells up inside George, making him clench his teeth together with the strength of it: an unexpected tenderness, an almost painful gratitude for this -- not even a kindness, a convention out of time. Swallowing hard, he replies in kind, forcing himself to keep his eyes open. Edward sees him. Knows him. Recognizes him. The awareness again, now of being made into somebody from some body. Not of being loved, but of mattering, even for a short time, to another somebody. Of being enough of somebody to hold, to be held, to trust and be trusted enough for intimacy. His vision, already shortened by the darkness, blurs. George buries his face in Edward’s hair, feels his fingers curling into his own.

Afterwards, the word breaks from him before he can stop himself: “Stay.”

Edward says nothing, but doesn’t pull himself from their entanglement. George rests his head on his shoulder, closes his eyes. Silence once again enclosing him -- _them._

Warm, now.

***

The weak sunlight coming in through the window is what wakes him, and he reaches out for a shoulder or hand and grasps air. George opens his eyes, sits up, and looks to his left.

The bedroom door is closed. Half of the clothes left on the floor are missing. And Edward is gone.

Maybe he’s just outside the door, sitting at the table. Maybe he’s rummaging around in the kitchen. Waiting for--

Oh, for God’s sake. Don’t fool yourself. He’s taken his guitar, gone out the door, down the stairs, and out of your life.

Still, he gets up and dresses, walking out into the small dining area to find it empty. The kitchen too. Then the stairwell, both up and down. Then the stoop. There’s a man coming up the block, the distance obscuring his face -- gone for a walk? -- he passes without looking over, and his hair is bright red underneath his hat. 

George bites his lip, closes his eyes, and suppresses the disappointment. This is ridiculous. Expecting a one-night-stand to stay in the morning; have you fallen in love after less than twelve hours? Go back inside, make yourself some coffee, and you’ll be back to normal.

Maybe he’s at the bus stop or the train station.

He’d be gone by the time you got there anyway.

George turns and goes back inside. He makes coffee and toast and sits down with the book he started three nights ago: _The Age of Innocence._ He remembers what Edward said last night about Stephen Blackpool. He hasn’t read _Hard Times_ in three years. Best not to read it again. Only make you miserable.

He turns back to the trials and tribulations of Newland Archer, determined to put last night behind him in favor of them. Edward is probably halfway to Cleveland or St. Louis or wherever he’s going by now. He left without saying anything. He didn’t leave a phone number or anything else to reach him by. He doesn’t want to be chased after or found, simple as that.

But he stayed. He stayed.

So he needed a bed for the night.

But these rationalizations are weak, useless next to the way his skin twitches and tingles with the memory of warm hands touching it without reserve, a thumb brushing over his cheekbone soft as a ghost’s might. That voice reaching out of the dark to share something so simple and yet so dear, so much his own. Sharing it with someone he’d seen for the first time only an hour and a half ago. You don’t trust someone if you don’t recognize them, if you don’t see something of yourself in them. You don’t. You just don’t.

Oh, deal with it and read the damn book.

***

He’s about to put the _Tribune_ down when it catches his eye. He reads:

BODY RECOVERED IN LAKE CALUMET

PULLMAN -- On Sunday morning, at approximately seven A.M., local resident Thomas Farr was fishing on Lake Calumet when his line caught “something I knew was too heavy to be a fish.” What he reeled in was a man’s body, identified as Edward Little by the driver’s license in the wallet found in his pocket. The location from which the license was issued has yet to be identified due to partial water damage, and this paper knows of no missing person by that name in the city or its surrounding areas. A coroner’s report has yet to be released. If you have any tips or information, please call the number listed below and ask for James Fairholme.

His chest tightens. It’s not--

He never said his last name.

But if no one knows who he was--

Call them. Don’t. They need to know. Just say you had a drink together. Friday night was mine.

On the train, he runs through a list. Suicide -- he wanted one last fling before the end. Accident -- he was staying at the hotel in Pullman, taking a walk, and fell in. It was dark. Deep. He couldn’t find his way out. His clothes dragged him down. Then there’s murder.

Mugging gone wrong -- they were scared, they threw him in there without thinking, without removing identification. Pick-up gone wrong -- he made a pass to the wrong guy, who took enough offense to beat him. The Outfit, for whatever reason they always cook up to kill whomever, whenever.

By the time he gets home, a sick, heavy ache has settled in his belly. Do something about it. Do something about it. Find _(who?)_ them. Find them and… what? 

Better get a gun and learn to shoot it at first.

George rubs a hand across his eyes, feels a shaky laugh rack him. So there is something beneath rock-bottom after all. At least he can stop worrying about losing his mind.

_Get a gun and learn to shoot it._

And get shot yourself, or get arrested and spend the next ten years in prison.

He should’ve heard Edward moving around. Should have asked him to stay again. Should have asked him why he was leaving. Should have promised to help him, protect him, whatever he needed. This is the least you can do, to make it up to him. To give him something of what he gave you.

No matter who it is, they could kill him too. Of course. Afraid as always. Nevermind. He reaches for _T_ _he Age of Innocence_ again.

He doesn’t sleep that night. Or the next. Or the night after that. Or for too many after that. _Get a gun and learn to shoot it. Get a gun and learn to shoot it. Get a gun and learn to shoot it get a gun and learn to shoot it get a gun and learn to shoot it GET A GUN AND LEARN TO SHOOT IT--_

It’s the right thing to do. It’s the dangerous thing to do. He wants to live, wants to find those feelings from that night again, find them with someone else who’s there when he wakes up. Is that so wrong? No. Yes. No. Yes.

Maybe Edward went home with him because he thought he could keep him safe -- and if he couldn’t, he could at least avenge him. So do it. If not, he’ll keep haunting you, and you’ll never feel like somebody with anyone else. Anyone who tries, anyone you try with, will be an imitation. His ghost.

He wishes Edward would haunt him for real, like the ghosts in the stories he read when he was a kid. If he could talk to him, if he could know what he wanted, it would be so much easier to decide what to do. Or it would just make it that much harder, when he knows that his fear would get in the way of it. He’d be stuck arguing with a ghost day in and day out. He already is.

So he goes to work every day, and walks past the bar on his way back from the train. Only once, on a freezing day in December, does he look inside. There’s no one performing, but the radio is turned all the way up.

_I’m going back to New Orleans, my race is almost run_

_I’m going back to spend my life beneath that rising sun_

It’s not the same voice. High and sweet, almost keening. But there’s still pain in it. George shuts his eyes, opens them. Behind him he hears the soft click of shoes on cement. There’s that tremor up his spine, accompanied now by the weight of the guilt that bears down on him every time he goes by here.

What to do, what to do, what to do. Nothing. Don’t pretend you haven’t already made that choice.

He walks on.


	2. Spare Me Over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When John Irving opens a door to a stranger in the middle of a dust storm, he gets an unpleasant surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. This chapter is mostly based on the American folk song "O Death" (also called "Conversations with Death"), which research has shown was written by the singer and preacher Lloyd Chandler. If you want to listen to it, Ralph Stanley's rendition (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehFINQKctq0) from the film 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' is absolutely HAUNTING.  
> 2\. The other inspirations I took for this chapter are the 'The Twilight Zone' episodes "One for the Angels" and "Nothing in the Dark", both of which feature Death as a personification.  
> 3\. The prompts for Tuesday were "Monster/Shadow/Danse Macabre/'We shouldn't be here.'" I chose "Danse Macabre" when I found that the lyrics of "O Death" fits the allegory; namely, the idea that death comes for everyone regardless of station and situation in life.

_ Morton County, Kansas, June of 1935 _

The clock on the mantelpiece says two-thirty in the afternoon and it’s already blacker than pitch out there. Might not be bright until this time tomorrow. If he’s lucky. Two days of night are more than likely, with the wind up this high.

He should have been sensible and gone with Edward and George when they took off for California, but oh, no. Wouldn’t want to break his back picking grapes, or tomatoes, or whatever it is they grow out there. Just break his back trying to get from the house to the edge of the yard instead. He remembers their faces as they drove away in Edward’s Model T, their mouths hard-set to conceal their disappointment. There’s work in California, they’d said. Fair wages. You can sleep without worrying you’ll choke to death. John feels like kicking himself. Would it have been so hard to swallow his pride once he saw those valleys stretched out so long and green, like people wrote home about?

He ties the shirt tighter around his nose and mouth as if that will help, what with the dust coming in through the walls now. It’s too dark to read, and a lantern would only get coated anyway. Not too loud yet, though, not so loud that he couldn’t sleep. He draws his knees up to his chest, curling himself as far into the corner as he can, and buries his head in his arms.

A sharp, pounding knock startles him into waking. Who is crazy or wants to die enough be out on a day or night like this? He stands and walks to the door, keeping his head down, and catches a glimpse of the clock on the way. Four on the dot. He opens the door a crack, sees one dark, blinking eye, lashes encrusted with dust, hears a low, desperate voice say, “Let me in,” and opens it just wide enough to slip through; it doesn’t matter who this person is, no one should be out in a storm like this. A figure sidles in, removing the stained handkerchief from their face once John closes the door. A young man, dressed in a suit but no coat, a hat obscuring most of his hair. Slender frame and a pale, open face. Handsome, John would suppose, if he were a judge of such a thing. He is covered head to toe in dust, dirt, blades of grass and torn-off pieces of other plants. “Thanks,” he says, and stands by the door. John swallows.

“Brush yourself off,” he says, slower than he would like to. The young man shakes his head. “It’s alright -- I always have to sweep up after one of these. You won’t make much difference.” The young man hesitates, then removes his hat, revealing a head of dark hair, and shakes the debris off onto the floor before brushing off his clothes. “What are you doing out there?”

“I’m here on business,” the young man says. He laughs ruefully, brushing a hand over his face. “You can probably tell I’m not from around here. Only a visitor would be stupid enough to think those clouds were a thunderstorm.”

John opens his mouth to say “It’s nothing,” or something of that ilk, but what comes out is, “You’ve never read about what goes on down here in the papers?”

“No. I never read the papers.” John nods, not bothering with surprise or confusion. Plenty of people don’t read the papers anymore, when you could save two or three cents for the grocery or the children’s Christmas gifts. 

“Sit down,” he says, turning away. “You want anything to…” He trails off, remembering that there’s no point in asking. Grit keeps getting into the refrigerator and the power’s out half the time.

“No, thank you.” The man sits and clears his throat. “My business is with you.”

In spite of the painfully dry air, John feels a chill drench him. A madman. That’s who would be out in this kind of weather. A madman who wants to kill him. His rifle: gone, sold to pay the mortgage. He reaches blindly for the drawer behind him, gropes until his hand closes on a knife’s handle and he turns back to the man, holding it tight behind his back.

“Sit.” The young man gestures to the chair across from him. John does. “Hear me out. You’re not going to like what I have to say, but please don’t speak until I finish.” He clears his throat again. “I’ve got to leave, and you’ve got to come with me.”

John grips the knife still tighter. “No, I don’t.”

The young man shakes his head. “Everyone’s got their time to leave. Now’s yours. I’m sorry, but I can’t do anything about it.”

John bites the inside of his cheek, trying to clear the haze of fear clouding his mind. “Get out of my house.”

“Sure. When you come with me.”

“Look--” -- John coughs and tries to summon strength -- “--if you want to hurt me, I won’t go down easy.”

Another shake of the head. “So I’ve got to tell you outright.”

“Tell me  _ what?”  _ John senses the beginning of a headache. 

“It’s my fault, really; I should have been clearer. It’s your time to leave this earth, and I’m here to take you from it. Now, I’m not here to kill you,” he adds, raising his hand. “Let go of the knife, Mr. Irving. You’ll hurt yourself holding it that tight.”

John, who’s been ready to snap at him, feels his grip go slack. Barely hears the knife falling from his hand, clattering dully on the floor. The chill grows stronger, wraps itself around his neck heavy as the hangman’s rope. No. No. No. Not--

“I’m not the Devil, Mr. Irving,” the young man says affably, “and nor am I God, if that’s what you’re worrying about. I don’t concern myself with your earthly deeds, whatever they may have been. My job’s to be impartial, and if you don’t mind me praising myself a little, I think I do that very well.”

An ice-cold lump has settled in John’s throat. He tries to swallow it down, not asking who this man is because he knows. The knowledge rests in the pit of his belly, on the back of his shoulders, weighing him down, stooping him over. He licks his lips. Opens his mouth.

“No.” His voice sounds weak, cracked-up and brittle in his ears. “Let me be.”

“You know I can’t do that, Mr. Irving.” The young man’s eyes are kind, his voice is gentle, but his extended hand is too thin, the skin too pale, too fine; the bones are just visible beneath. Hands meant for a hard, unforgiving grasp. John recoils, leaning back in his chair. “Like I said. I can’t afford to fail in my duties. Take my hand. It’s not going to hurt.”

“How do I--” -- the lump in his throat has grown bigger, he’s rasping around it -- “--what is someone going to know?”

“Dust gets into this house, doesn’t it? Into your throat. You suffocate.”

John’s eyes are burning. He tries to raise his hand to wipe them, and his arm is leaden. “Stop.” His voice is turning high, thin, like it always does when he panics, and oh, God, let this be a dream, let this be a dream. “What are you doing to me?”

“The more you argue, the worse you’ll feel it,” the young man says, his tone soft, tinged with sadness. “Please. Don’t fight me. Your time is gone already. All that’s left of mercy is me.”

“Mercy?” John hears himself as if underwater: dull, far-away. “You -- mercy?” A laugh rattles in his throat. “You’re killing me. Killing me when -- when I’ve got -- when I could give you something? I don’t have much, but what I’ve got’s valuable. It’d do you good in time.” This is crazy. He’s going crazy. What does this man need with a house, with a plot of land, with -- with anything at all? 

Tears run down his cheeks. He never thought he’d be this afraid. All those Sundays hearing about God welcoming you into Heaven and he’s terrified. Shaking in his boots like a little kid.

But this man is not God. He is not welcoming him anywhere. He is taking him away to… where? Heaven and Hell are suddenly uncertain. He feels his faith, his beliefs dissipating one by one, leaving gaps inside of him which are filled by uncertainty and stomach-knotting fear.

“I don’t need anything,” the young man says calmly, “except your soul.” He sighs. “Look. The dirt and the worms have got a claim on rich men and poor men alike. That’s how it’s always been, and it’s how it’ll always be. I can’t make an exception for you. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“I’m _ thirty-three.”  _ His words barely register in his ears. The walls are going hazy. “I’m -- I’m--”

“That’s not a reason, Mr. Irving. I’ve taken children two years in this world.”

_ “Please.”  _ The tears won’t stop.  _ “Please,  _ I’ve got--”

“So much to live for.” The young man has risen from his chair and walked over to where John sits. “I know. So does everyone. Now please, take my hand.”

_ “No.”  _ He’s curled up on the floor somehow, now, the lump taking up his entire throat.  _ “I -- I can’t -- let me be. Next… year. Come back -- next year. Give me time to say goodbye. Please.” _

The young man who is Death kneels. Takes John’s hand in his own.

Cold. Strangely soft. Light. Like a breeze at the end of autumn, rushing across his face.


	3. The Saviour in the Wood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At what seems to be the end of everything, Thomas Hartnell finds grace from the most unexpected of sources.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. This chapter is based on a couple of different scenes from Robert Eggers's 2015 film 'The Witch', though mostly the ending.  
> 2\. Please let me know if I've gotten something wrong when it comes to the discussions of God in this chapter. I am but a humble Jew who knows not much in the ways of Puritanism, though I did try to research for this a little, using Wikipedia and 'The Witches: Salem, 1692' by Stacy Schiff. Also, don't hesitate point out any errors I've made with the use of Early Modern English, if I've made any.  
> 3\. The prompts for Wednesday were "Witchcraft/Moonlight/Weird Science/Free Space". I chose "Witchcraft".
> 
> CONTENT WARNING for large amounts of (off-page) death, some grief, and suicidal ideation.

_The Massachusetts Bay Colony, November of 1633_

_Click-clack, clack-click, click-clack._ The door swung back and forth on its hinges, blown open by the gusting wind, which shrieked and tore its way through the house again and again, as if it were unsatisfied with its presence being ignored. It was stronger, far stronger than it had been yesterday, and tomorrow it would be stronger still. Then the snow would come, deep and nigh impossible to walk through, and the river would freeze over with ice too thick to break. The tradesmen would not dare to venture this far from their towns when the roads were cut off, and the traps they had so carefully laid in the woods would have to be stored away until April, for the animals had now begun to hide themselves away so cleverly that they could be caught by only the most patient and warmly dressed of men.

_Click-clack, clack-click, click-clack, clack-click._

Beneath the quilt, Tom had ceased to shiver. The cold had settled into his bones now, and he carried it as he carried the dull ache of grief in his chest, without thought. In his belly he felt a hollowness that was both the familiar hunger and an unfamiliar emptiness, as if he had pulled all his innards up out of him to bury in the garden with the others, leaving behind only flesh and eyes and a tongue which grew dryer and heavier by the hour. He screwed his eyes shut, stubbornly waiting for a sleep that had not come for three days, a sleep which he knew never would come unless he could make himself forget, or until he joined the rest of his family.

Thou durst never to question the will of the Lord thy God, Father always said. What would he have said, had he known it to be God’s will that the crop would fail, that the woods would yield almost naught, that they would all sicken, and that he would not live a year after first setting foot in Boston? How could this be God’s will, unless they had all done something to displease Him? Tom feverishly racked his mind for the one-hundredth time, recounting every little transgression, every sin he had ever inflicted upon himself and others, every sin he might have ever inflicted, or even simply thought of in passing. He must have done something terrible. He had to have done. Surely God would not be punishing him else.

Would He? Why would God, he thought suddenly, be punishing him, since he was already saved or damned?

Then this was not punishment. What was it, then?

Nothing at all. Merely what God, and all of them, had known would come to pass one day.

The _click-clack_ ing had stopped. Tom forced himself to raise his head. The door was gone, blown clean off of its hinges by the wind. He gripped the quilt in his numb fingers. Perhaps he would be next. Perhaps the wind would pick him up and only an hour from now he would be lying on the ground next to a tree, his head cracked in twain. A sweet mercy that would be.

A pain, stronger than any of the others he had felt the past days, seized him: red-hot, as if someone had thrust a fire poker into his belly. He cried out, wheezed, curled himself up even tighter, sobbed and felt no tears in his eyes. His eyes ached; tender and raw, it hurt to blink. He bit his lip and found it dry and cracked in countless places, his tongue was too heavy, too swollen to move--

Food. The traps. The traps were set in the woods. Mayhaps there was but one creature not yet asleep, who had been caught. Yes. It was autumn yet. There must be, there must be, dear Lord, let there be.

He pushed himself up on his hands and nearly fell out of bed, bent double all the while, for the pain had not abated. Struggling into his coat and wraps, he took the rifle from its place on the wall and stumbled over the threshold, walking towards the woods stooped over in a manner more suited to that of an old man. 

The trees were tall, bare, and forlorn, their branches stretched towards the sky, towards Heaven as if in supplication. What is it for which ye beg, Tom thought senselessly, resting against one of them. What can it be a tree wants?

The first two traps, set near the shallow creek, yielded nothing, but gratitude rushed through him all the same, for the creek was not frozen; he sank to his knees and drank face-down as the animals did, uncaring if someone should find him so or that the water was so cold it stung his teeth and tasted of mud. Thirst tolerably slaked, he went on, stepping over the creek so as not to soak his boots. 

The third trap, nothing. The fourth, nothing. The fifth, nothing. The sixth and the seventh and the eighth, nothing. How many had they set out all those weeks ago? Father had brought so many, made so many; the woods there are rich, he had told Mother one night back in Gillingham, they yield God’s wealth, Sarah, dost thou not see, He hath taken His goodness from this sinful place and bestowed it upon those in that New World who doth deserve it. Father was wrong. The wood was poor, the soil thin and full of rocks. The ninth, nothing. The tenth, nothing. The sky had darkened. How late had he left?

The pain in his belly was, somehow, growing worse. Fiery tendrils slithered and knotted in his veins, his head pounded. His foot caught on a root and he fell on his side, panting; had he had the strength, he would have wept. Merciful Father, let me die. Surely You see how there is nothing left for me. Let me die. Let me die.

“Why, child, why art thou resting here in this desolate place?”

The voice rumbled through him: deep, so deep it might have come up from underneath the earth. Tom wrenched his throbbing head to the right. A figure stood over him, their features obscured, lit from behind by an enormous, milky moon. 

“Canst thou understand me, child?”

“I can.” His own voice a thread about to break. “I -- I cannot stand.” There was no reply, save for a large hand reaching down and pulling him upwards by his own.

“There. Now tell me true. What dost thou want?”

The hand was warm, and he could not help but moan when it left his. It had been too long since he had felt the warmth of another’s flesh next to his own. Father and Mother and John and Mary Ann and Charles and Betsey, all of them so cold at the end. The figure -- a man, by his voice, though his face was still in darkness -- cupped Tom’s face with a gentle grasp. “I’ll not hurt thee, if thou art afeared. What dost thou want?”

“Food.” The word left his mouth before he thought of it. “A fire. A warm bed.”

“What else?” The voice grew still deeper. The pain was lessening. “There is nothing I cannot and will not give. Wouldst thou care to be a prince upon a throne? Pretty women to keep thee in thy bed until the sun has risen and set thrice? A fine hat? Wouldst thou like to see the world from above, every mountain and wood and stream spread out before thee to take? ’Tis thine, sweetling. I ask only one favour of thee.”

Tom felt his head set to spinning. Every offer greater and richer than the last. Too much and yet -- and yet wonderful. Why not? His life, until now, had lain in ruins about his feet. Here was a chance, though strange ’twas, to build another. Why not?

“What wilt thou take of me?”

“Remove thy clothing, child.”

Fear gripped him for the first time since meeting the man, and he drew in a sharp breath. The man laughed a low, gravel laugh. “Did I not tell thee I’d not hurt thee? Thou need not fear lust of me. ’Tis but tradition.”

“It’s--” The pain in his belly and head had vanished entirely. “It’s so cold.”

“I will make thee warm.”

Tom hesitated, and swallowed down his fear. He shucked his clothing: coat and wraps and hat, boots and socks, shirt and trousers, until he stood shivering beneath the man’s shadow. The man reached into his cloak and pulled something out: a small book bound in dark leather.

“Canst thou write thy name?”

“Yes.” No fear rose in him, no horror, no revulsion. He had known who this man was the moment he offered a throne, and was willing. It was a sin, the greatest sin of all, but when he had thought there was nothing left, there was this, and it would be far, far more than enough. Who else was there to help him, now? God was unknowable and unreachable.

The man pressed the book into his hands. Tom looked from it to him and back again. “I have naught with which to write.”

“Give me thy hand.” Tom offered it; the man raised it to his mouth, pierced the heel with two teeth, and Tom made no sound, for no sting came of the bite. He watched as his blood, blackened by the moonlight, dripped down onto the empty page -- one, two, three, four, five drops -- and wet his finger in it, signing his name beneath the others. The man took the book back, inspected the signature, closed it, and tucked it back into the folds of his cloak. “Come, child. I have kept supper and a warm bed for thee.” And with those words, he seemed to melt into a shapeless mass, which reformed into a black dog high as Tom’s waist. The dog wagged its tail. Climb upon my back, its eyes said, and he did, sinking his fingers into the thick, warm fur. The dog turned towards the east, where the trees grew closest together and the moon shone the brightest. 

Tom could see the faintest flickering of bright, hot firelight through the wood. Off they went.


	4. Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John Hartnell waits for Graham Gore to come home. When he does, a strange thing follows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. This chapter is very loosely inspired by Gottfried August Bürger's 1773 ballad "Lenore".  
> 2\. The more I wrote this, the more I realized it made no sense. Really, it doesn't. And then I decided it didn't need to make sense. Please enjoy the weird stuff my brain comes up with.  
> 3\. The prompts for Thursday were "Cursed/Ghosts/Rattling Bones/'Legend has it...'". I chose "Rattling Bones".
> 
> CONTENT WARNING for a little bit of gore at the end.

_London, October of 1848_

The room was warm, stifling, and throwing all the windows open had done nothing, for there was no wind that night; the world held its breath, waiting, it seemed, for the fulfillment of a long-held wish. John sat in the sill, stood, walked the length of the room, sat and stood again, looking at the clock.

Ten o’clock. The ship had gotten into port at ten o’clock this morning. Why hadn’t he come home?

_The_ _Times_ had not listed the dead, of course. Such a private thing was reserved for letters from the Admiralty, informing you with great sorrow and regret that your father or husband or son or brother or lover had left this earth. No letter had come either. But suppose--

How much longer could he expect to bear this? He felt as though he had been doused in flames that would not be put out no matter how he tried to quench them. Taking care of himself would not do -- the ivory would not do -- a cold bath would do for only a little while -- no, nothing and no one would do but Graham. He paced the room again and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror: flushed, scarlet cheeks and shallowly heaving chest; the very picture of that strange, operatic place between lust and madness, and yet where they also twine. Back to the window once more, leaning out into the street, swallowing down the cold, still air; and nothing, nothing, nothing, no relief, only the endless prickings of a thousand red-hot needles underneath his skin. He fell against the wall and drew his knees to his chest, trembling violently, begging his blood to cool. More than twelve hours of this agony! -- let another pass, let another half-hour pass, and he would burst forth from his skin. 

He almost wished, viciously, that a letter would arrive. A letter would be a cure for this torture. But no, he must not wish that, he must not wish death, not when it might have already come to pass. He must not even think of it, when to think of it would make him madder than he felt, and to feel this madness was a burning anguish beyond anything he had ever known. He rocked back and forth, worrying his lips between his teeth.

A half-hour passed. An hour. Dead, then -- drowned, or frozen, or eaten up. Where was the letter? How could they be so cruel as to deny such knowledge to him?

The clock rang twelve times. Now it was too early and too late for any news to arrive. The candle guttered and burned ever lower. The back of his neck itched, he reached up to scratch and found his skin slick with sweat. It will not abate, he thought desperately, it will not abate until I am some unrecognisable thing who pants and ruts on all fours like a dog.

Then, suddenly: a strange sound, a sort of clacking, rattling. Rats in the walls? And then (at last!) a knock on the door. John shot upwards, hurting his elbow on the side of the clock as he did so, and all but flew downstairs, throwing the door open without a second thought. Graham stood in the doorway, his face illuminated by the lamplight inside, the expression of which changed from exhausted to exhilarated in a split second as John yanked him inside.

What followed was not so much a kiss, if a kiss can be considered a meeting of two pairs of lips. This was more of a clashing of teeth and tongues, accompanied by the very occasional meeting of lips. And all the while, very faintly now: _clack-clack-clack-clack._ Certainly there were rats in the walls.

“Where have you _been?”_ John cried, finally tearing himself from the kiss and staring at Graham with a mixture of incredulity and adoration.

“You’ll laugh, but I got lost. I forgot how much of a maze London can be and walked all the way to Camden first.” This was all the explanation needed for the both of them, and they promptly resumed what might have looked to an outside eye like a mutual attempt to devour each other. Neither of them thought to go upstairs, or even into the next room in which there was a sofa; rather, down they went to the floor with a great _THUD_ in an embrace so tight that John began to wonder where exactly it was he ended and Graham began.

_Clack-clack-clack-clack._ Now it was closer by. Too close to be the walls. “Love?” John gasped, and Graham lifted his head from the crook of John’s neck. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“That sound. Like rattling.”

Graham frowned and shook his head. “I don’t.”

Well, then. He must have been mistaken, and the rats were in the cellar. Tomorrow they would descend and remove them. John struggled with the buttons on his trousers and underthings, managed to get them around his ankles, the floor unforgivingly hard and cold beneath him, but that did not matter, not when Graham was similarly half-clothed and gazing down at him with a starved, wolfish look. “Go on,” he cried, _“now”,_ and his own ecstatic howl rang in his ears (along with the _clack-clack-clack-clack);_ this was a different burning, one he was all too happy to welcome. Graham did not hold back, and John arched into him, tears streaming from his eyes, laughing and sobbing all at once. Every muscle, every tendon, every vein in his body roiled with the most wonderful, the most terrible sensations of pain and pleasure, and he knew he would not be able to withstand it much longer -- it would carry him away -- he would drown in it -- die in the midst of these wrenching ecstasies! 

_Clack-clack-clack-clack-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK._

That awful rattling, those horrid rats! Why wouldn’t they stop moving about? Graham’s teeth nipped at his throat and John thought that he could hear his blood rising, boiling in anticipation of climax. He grasped and clawed at Graham’s coat, felt himself wound so tight he could not breathe, his belly clenched as if he would be ill, and then stars exploded into white light behind his eyes -- he heard an inhuman wail and knew it to come from himself -- a void had opened up inside the both of them, and he was spinning through it -- _CLACK-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK--_

He was back on the floor, listening to Graham’s breathing slow, his arms limp on either side of him. Languorously, he lifted one hand to brush away a hair sticking to Graham’s cheek, but his fingers met air. It took a moment for it to dawn on him what was happening: Graham was, for lack of a better term, _peeling_ away; his skin had separated in half and was falling to the floor, and there were no bones, no muscle, no blood beneath but only an empty blackness. John gaped at him (or rather, at what was left of him), unable to make a sound. And all the while the clacking, the rattling, grew louder and louder and louder, until it thundered through the house, and finally John saw its source. When the skin lay on the floor in two heaps all that was left was a pile of bones, jumping and rattling away. 

Black spots began to spread over John’s vision. And, just like that, the rattling stopped.


	5. Superior Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the afternoon of Halloween in 1924, Thomas Jopson and Thomas Hartnell linger before putting their plan in motion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. This chapter is based on the real-life Leopold and Loeb murder case, as well its various portrayals in fiction such as Alfred Hitchcock's film 'Rope' (1948), Meyer Levin's 1956 novel 'Compulsion' and its subsequent 1959 film adaptation directed by Richard Flesicher, Barbet Schroeder's 2002 film 'Murder by Numbers', and Stephen Dolginoff's 2003-2005 musical 'Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story'.  
> 2\. The line "There's no me if there's no you" and the phrase "nothing like a fire" are both from 'Thrill Me'; specifically the songs "Keep Your Deal With Me" and "Nothing Like a Fire".  
> 3\. The prompts for Friday were "Midnight/Shiver/Trick or Treat!/'Happy Halloween!'" I chose "Happy Halloween!", though really, its use is minimal at best.
> 
> CONTENT WARNING for mention of child murder.

_ Chicago, 31 October 1924 _

On the third floor of the Weatherstone Hotel, in the fourth room to the right of the elevator, a cigarette lighter hissed to life, served its purpose, and died with an abrupt click.

Thomas looked up from tying his shoes and caught a glimpse of Tom in the mirror over the dresser. His features were distorted by the glass, twisted to the side as if some giant’s pair of hands had pushed his eyes, nose, and mouth to the left. There was something unsettling about it; in the mirror he became -- not a stranger, but unfamiliar nonetheless. Uncanny. Thomas let his head loll to the side. There. Now he was himself again.

“What are you doing?” Tom asked, stubbing out his half-finished cigarette and turning back around. Thomas shrugged.

“Watching you. Thinking.”

“About what?”

“How we’ll feel when we’re done. What it’ll be like to feel nothing.”

Tom furrowed his brow in thought. “Nothing can’t be ‘like’ anything. And you said we couldn’t think about things like that. ‘An experiment in objectivity.’ Those were your words.”

There were his own words back in his face again. It was what they did, when they wanted to remind each other of what all this was really about. Not for fame. Not for money or sheer fun.  _ “Because we can.”  _ It was a test, one long test to see if they really were superior to everyone else, if they really were meant to look down at all the other people in this godforsaken city and move them around like pieces on an enormous chess board, knocking them over as they pleased. And hell, there was the thrill of it. That sweet shudder up and down your back that told you not only that you had done it, but you’d gotten away with it, and you’d gotten away with it with  _ him,  _ and no one but the two of you would ever know. Another secret to bring you closer. Another break-in, another robbery, another fire to laugh about later, when the blankets were thrown back and your clothes were all over the floor. And now the apex. It was the natural and logical progression, really. If other people were so far below them, it wouldn’t be too much of a hassle to get rid of one, much less a little kid who’d done nothing in particular to prove himself worthy of living. Being objective would be the easiest thing, he told himself, once they actually got to doing it. All this thinking was nothing but nerves.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “You’re right. Nothing’s not ‘like’ anything. We’ll be fine.”

Tom nodded. “There’s no reason we won’t be. We’ve been objective about everything else.”

“Except that fire,” Thomas said, remembering from two months ago. “The one in Lincoln Park.” He saw Tom wince, and couldn’t help but feel a spark of smug triumph at it. He’d been the one to bring up objectivity in the first place, but it was Tom who was always reminding him of it before another outing. Seeing him react so strongly had been more satisfying than Thomas had initially wanted to admit to himself, but once he’d mulled it over it had been impossible not to bring it up every now and then. After all, neither of them was better than the other. Superior together, they’d sworn.  _ “There’s no me if there’s no you.” _

“I said I was sorry. And you liked it -- you liked it when I pulled over into the park and told you to get in the backseat. You weren’t objective either--”

“Alright, alright! We both failed that time.” Thomas sighed. “It was the midterms. Let’s just agree there was nothing like a fire to get us going.”

“Sure wasn’t.” Tom raised an eyebrow and grinned. “What was it I said?”

Thomas snorted. “You mean in between all your moaning and me banging my head on the door? I think it was something like, ‘I wonder what it’d be like to choke on it.’”

“I did  _ not!”  _ But they were both laughing now, the tension dissipated entirely, and as Thomas felt his shoulders drop ever so slightly, he knew they would be alright. Superior together. Yes. They could do this, and they could be perfectly objective about it. What would the kid mean to them? They didn’t know him, or good as. He was nothing, nothing at all in the long run; he was only an experiment, another test, this one to see if they really could pull off the perfect crime. All this was and would ever be was a stepping-stone on the way to greater things. Once this was over they could leave behind the small-time shit: the robberies and burning-ups of abandoned warehouses. No one cared about that kind of stuff, no one who mattered anyway. This was going to give Chicago a real fit; if Torrio could somehow know who it was, he’d be grateful to them for getting the papers off his back. 

But he couldn’t. No one could. That was what made it perfect. Oh, they’d find someone to pin it on -- the city was crawling with more and more dime-a-dozen creeps every day, and the cops and the state’s attorney were just dying to put every single one of them away. No one’d ever look twice at a couple of seventeen-year-old kids who didn’t even know the poor boy. Perfect. The plan was perfect. Now all they had to do was execute it.

“We should get going,” Thomas said, speaking after a minute of silence. “It’s already past noon.”

Tom looked at the clock on the bedside table. “We should.” But neither of them moved. The last moment before going back became impossible was one to savor. Thomas stared into Tom’s eyes, thinking: last chance for him to buckle, last chance for me to buckle, last chance for us to go on like we do, and knew that Tom was thinking the same thing. Then something caught his attention -- the faint gleam of sunlight reflecting from his glasses -- and the moment was gone. He stood and took them from the table, hooking them over his ears. 

“Let’s go.” He thought he could hear something new in his voice. An edge of detachment. Good.

Tom slung an arm around Thomas’s shoulder, pulled him close and pressed a kiss to the side of his head. “No use waiting for it to happen, right?”

Thomas laughed. “Right.”

The door swung shut behind them as they made for the staircase. Fifteen minutes and it’d be done. Fifteen minutes until perfection. Fifteen minutes until the beginning of true superiority.


End file.
